[Lia Vainer] Schucman points to what she calls "the racism of intimacy" as a unique feature of Brazilian culture arising from its history. In contrast with the segregationist racism that prevailed in South Africa or the South in the United States, what we have in Brazil is a kind of racism that presupposes interaction between 'whites' and 'blacks'. This relationship may even be moderated by positive feelings of affection without ceasing to be racist. "My aim was to analyze how 'interracial families' experience, negotiate, construct or deconstruct racism in their intimacy," she said.

Written in startlingly beautiful prose, Harmless Like You is set across New York, Connecticut, and Berlin, following Yuki Oyama, a Japanese girl fighting to make it as an artist, and Yukiâ€™s son Jay who, as an adult in the present day, is forced to confront his motherâ€™s abandonment of him when he was only two years old.

The novel opens when Yuki is sixteen and her father is posted back to Japan. Though she and her family have been living as outsiders in New York City, Yuki opts to stay, intoxicated by her friendship with the beautiful aspiring model Odile, the energy of the city, and her desire to become an artist. But when she becomes involved with an older man and the relationship turns destructive, Yukiâ€™s life is unmoored. Harmless Like You is a suspenseful novel about the complexities of identity, art, adolescent friendships, and familial bonds that asksâ€”and ultimately answersâ€”how does a mother desert her son?